It's not quite couture or necessarily sleek, it may not be even particularly trendy, but what the work of Photos NikolaidsofA:S:S (which stands for Another Stupid Shirt Shop) is, is fun, versatile, off the wall, whimsical, sexy and above all, surprisingly affordable and incredibly wearable.

Photos may have started A:S:S as a basic t-shirt stop, but he's both expanded his inventory and grown his own skill just over the few months since I first discovered him. He does have awesome t-shirts that range from funny (and, yes, cute) basics to politically aware (see his line of free shirts for Amnesty International,) to bawdy and provocative.

Lately he's been pushing his skills into more complex designs. He still produces mostly casual clothes for men and women, but his separates are incredibly versatile and wearable and work both alone or as layers with other designers.

He's also aces at providing layers of clothing to allow you to mix and match in pretty much any combination. Shirts typically come with an undershirt, shirt and jacket layer version. Jeans and pants have both pants and underwear versions. His tank tops find their way under a lot of open shirts and jackets I wear, and his button downs fit nicely under my favorite vests.

You will occasionally find (especially in his older stuff) a minor seam glitch or misalign -- which I think he's been willing to fix in the past.

His prim collars and cuffs are modifiable and resizable which is awesome -- I've pretty much given up buying clothes from designers who make their prim attachments no modify -- not all avatars are built the same and I'd rather not have to keep adjusting my avatar because a prim collar is built so small I have to have a pencil neck to wear it.

None of that is an issue with the clothing from A:S:S, and I think that stems as much from the fact that Photos is a smart guy as it does from the fact that the vast majority of his offerings are unisex. He does have some strictly male, strictly female offerings, but most of his clothing looks good on either gender and in some cases, he's deliberately challenged what might be considered a female fashion application and made it into a statement on remaining masculine and thinking outside the box.

You won't find a lot of really complex textures that requires a massively powerful graphics card to render or (thank you, Photos,) basic colors such as white, black, red, green or blue that are uniquely his -- his reds are red and his whites white, not slightly off so no one can wear, say his red tank, with anyone else's red jacket.

Given the variable nature of lighting and graphic settings in world, and the vast difference in rendering color and texture between individual users and their computer systems, this is actually more important than it might seem. I have two PC's and a laptop that I frequently swap between for just that reason, the same with swapping between the LL release browser and my preferred emerald browser. Photos's colors/textures hold up pretty well across systems.

You can also find a wide array of non-clothing items in the store: tattoos, jewelry and mouth toys, furniture, skyboxes (and his skyboxes are seriously awesome,) shoes, and if you are interested in the more bishouen look, he has a nice collection of skins that are either free or amazingly affordable.

Nearly everything in the store is between $25L and $125L, maybe $250L for fatpacks, and there's a lot of things for under $25L, -- there may be a few things that range upwards of $500L (Skyboxes, some larger sets) but the average cost is probably between $75-$125L. He maintains a nice discount area and has a newbie pack for av's under 30 days old.

But here's the thing...It's pretty obvious that Photos is having a blast most of the time, and when he gets in a mood, you never know what he's going to come up with or what he's going to do. If he has an idea he runs with it, and if he likes it, he puts it out for sale or, he gives it away...

Not just in his lucky chair or discount room, but through his subscribo, or tucked into some mini hunt or just says, hey, I made this, come get it for free for the next day or so. I've spent a fair amount of Lindens in his shop, but I can guarantee you that what I've gotten free or for $1L is twice as much as I've ever paid.

So, stop by and take a look. Join the group. Check out his discount room if you aren't sure and spend very little to figure it out, and look for him in the next male oriented Make Him Over Hunt" beginning on October 15th. I honestly don't think you will be disappointed on any front.

And if you see him in his shop (and he's there a lot) say hi, or at least thank you.

~~~~~~~~~A:S:S Designs pictured top to bottom:

1. Light grey turtleneck, light grey pants, dark blazer - Monochrome separates set - currently on the "Pay What You Want" wall on the second floor of the main shop.

Translate This Page

Legal Stuff

Second Life®, Linden Lab®, SL™, SLurl™, and Lindens™ are trademarks or registered trademarks of Linden Research, Inc. All rights reserved. No infringement is intended. Designer Spotlight is not affiliated with, or sponsored by Linden Research, Inc.